That’s right, free — this Monday, Feb. 15, is a free day at the Denver Botanic Gardens.[1] Admission is gratis; you pay nada, bupkus, rien, amigos. (fyi: it’s just at the York Street facility, though, not at Chatfield, where admission is still $5 per passenger car, though members get in free).

There’s a lot of new stuff going on at the Gardens, including new buildings, a sale in the gift shop, and a prestigious exhibition of massive Henry Moore sculptures [2]that opens March 8, and — yes — the first tentative beginnings of spring.

It really is coming; I saw the spikes of daffodil shoots outside the University Club in Denver on my way to work today. They looked chilly. But the Gardens says its Easter daisies are blooming, plus some witch hazel, and of course some of the tropical beauties in the Conservatory.

Plus here’s a thought: If you love a plant in the winter, that’s a love that lasts. As with humans — who reveal their true characters are revealed not when everything’s all sunny and happy and they’ve just won Powerball and scored a date with a Rhodes Scholar/movie star/microlending Nobelist/supermodel, but when the plumbing’s backed up and everyone in the house has the flu and it’s 13 degrees — plants show a side of themselves in winter that you’re not going to necessarily see in the catalogs or glamour shots. Garden designs show their bone structures in winter. Take a notebook and write down or sketch what you like. See blooms, take names.

And yes, we ARE all flower-starved. So dig your flower shots out of that digital basement and send them to me at sclotfelter@denverpost.com[3], and win yourself a Plant Cam.[4] So you can take time-lapse pictures of your flowers (or herbs, veggies and rosebushes). With which you can win more stuff next year. (I’ll post some photos from greener places and warmer seasons to prime the pump). To see the Plant Cam in action, click on that link above — YouTube has lots of video shot with Plant Cams.